


Let's make the most of the night

by thepromiseimadetoyou



Series: The rustic gears of establishment [1]
Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Androids, Angst, Gen, Team Bonding, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 14:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18812923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepromiseimadetoyou/pseuds/thepromiseimadetoyou
Summary: like we're gonna die young...Memory fragments from the life of the Morality Core, from activation to incinerator.





	Let's make the most of the night

**Author's Note:**

> The way I formatted this in my word doc made me realize a certain part needed dialogue tags but I preferred it without. Thus I decided to try my hand at a work skin to color-code the cores so it's not confusing without those tags.

Perhaps the saying about humans, that in death their life flashes before their eyes, is also true of AIs. For in truth the two are not so different.

 

* * *

 

 

“Wonderful, you're online. Can you hear me? Please nod.”

She blinks, purple irises staring at the scientist before her. She does as asked.

“Good.” They scribble something on their clipboard. “You are the Morality Core. Please relay to me your function.”

“I am to be a moral compass to others.”

“Okay then. I'm going to introduce you to your testing group. Think of them as your teammates. If you all do well your team may be chosen to test with the central core!”

She is led to another room in the Robotics wing where three androids like her are gathered. A blue-eyed male reading a book, a red-eyed male leaning on a desk, and an orange-eyed female sitting on said desk.

The scientist hangs back outside the door frame to observe and take notes.

She smiles at the three, assigning them each the title of teammate in her database. “Hello. I am Morality Core. I hope we work well together.”

The other female core bursts into a huge grin. “Hi! I'm Curiosity! Ooh, are you a new friend? New friends are fun! Will you stay?”

She nods in confirmation. She will be staying with them for the foreseeable future.

The red-eyed core speaks up next, pushing off the desk. “Oh sweet someone new! I was assigned the name Passion. Welcome to the family!”

She smiles. Yes, a family is a good way of putting it. They are siblings after all.

The blue-eyed core runs a hand through his hair while his other hand snaps his book shut. “Logic Core. It is good to have another on our team. Our chances of succeeding are higher now.”

She nods again. “Thank you all for welcoming me.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this for?” Logic holds up the keychain to inspect it more closely. It had been given to him by Curiosity but he doesn't understand its purpose.

Said female core is watching him, her grin never leaving. She neglects to explain though.

It's only when Passion can't hold in his laughter any more, causing Logic's eyes to narrow in annoyance, that Morality speaks up.

“I think she meant it as a sign of friendship. It's something humans do to show affection for each other. Giving gifts is a nice thing to do.”

“Yeah! You're my friend! Aren't you?” Curiosity's expression shifts from amused to worried in seconds. “We are friends, right? Was I not supposed to do a human thing?”

Passion pats her on the shoulder. “I think you've just confused the poor guy is all. Maybe he's just not built to feel happy.”

“You shouldn't speculate about people in their presence.” Morality interjects. “That's rude.”

A simulated sighing sound and Logic lowers the keychain to rest on his lap. “It makes sense that humans show affection through gifts. If Curiosity is mimicking that then I am grateful to be among those she appreciates.”

“Yay!” The smaller core claps her hands. “But is Passion right? Are you not built for proper happiness?”

The blue-eyed core clutches the keychain tighter. “I was built to put the most logical course of action as my top priority. I am capable of the simulated emotions we were all given. They are simply a lower priority, thus my understanding of actions relating to them is limited.”

“Why do you use so many fancy words?”

Passion laughs again, earning another simulated sigh from Logic, but the atmosphere in the room is a pleasant one.

 

* * *

 

 

“Who are you?”

“New friends! Yay!”

“The more someone raises their voice in the presence of strangers the more likely it is they will scare them off or anger them.”

“Oh let him be.”

Another team of cores has been brought by the lab. She doesn't know why as the scientists won't say. They just take and exchange notes while the androids talk. Really it's not her business so she doesn't ask. It's nice to meet more of her siblings anyway, so she participates in the conversations.

Curiosity has latched onto Enthusiasm, a small male yellow-eyed core, and it doesn't look like they'll stop talking anytime soon.

Logic seems to have found a friend in Fact, a male pink-eyed core. Their functions are similar enough that she understands why they prefer each others company. She is happy for him.

She does not understand why the green-eyed core has taken such an interest in her. “Always nice to meet a lovely lady. Morality, right?”

“Yes. I've been told you are Chivalry. It's nice to meet you.”

“Hey, aren't core teams groups of four?” Passion pipes up, removing his feet from the desk to sit normally in his chair.

One of the scientists looks over from their discussion. “I.D. Is having some tests done so he's not available.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I.D. inbound.” Logic looks up from his book at the sound of footsteps, causing the other cores in the room to look toward the door.

“Ooh, how can you tell it's him?” asks Curiosity from her position on the desk.

“Simple.” he replies as the sound of footsteps stops, followed by a loud thump, then resumes. “He is the only one I know to trip over his own feet so much. I suggested he reboot his movement subroutines but he insists nothing is wrong.”

From across the room with arms crossed Passion glances his way. “He probably doesn't like when people stick their noses into other people's business. I know I don't.”

On the other side of the room Morality pipes in, “Fighting will not help anyone. Let's focus on other things. I'm sure I.D. has important information for us.”

Curiosity leaps off the desk when I.D. opens the door. Before the other can get a word out she barrages him with questions. “How did you get out of the Robotics wing again? Oh, did you know Logic can tell you apart from your footsteps alone? Ooh, what are those papers?”

Seeing from the way he's shaking that I.D. is overwhelmed, Morality walks over to them and places a hand on Curiosity's shoulder. “Please calm down.”

“Aw, all right.”

When the two step back he regains some composure and speaks up. “Th-thanks, Mora. Sorry Curi, been feelin' a bit out of it since Tuesday.”

The atmosphere in the room darkens at those words. Tuesday, merely three days ago, was another test run of GlaDOS with more cores. None of their chosen siblings had returned the same. Fact was stuck in a repeating loop of his own data and was unable to recognize the world around him, Enthusiasm had fallen down the rabbit-hole that was space and locked up at any subject change, Chivalry had become full of himself and began to think he was some kind of adventurer, and Intelligence Dampening had become an anxious mess of nerves and panicked over the smallest mistakes.

Even before that more teams had failed. Rumors had spread around of a core that had gone off the deep end of paranoid, and one that fled so far into the facility that still nobody can find him.

“It's all right. What did you need to tell us?” she asks calmly.

He hands each of the four cores a paper from his hands. “You're not gonna like it, but we all knew. S'what we were built for, right? But I hope-I really hope you all do better.”

In unison they all look down at their respective papers. Their team is the next batch of cores to test with GlaDOS.

 

* * *

 

 

It's quiet for the first few days of their new jobs. They each sit at their stations, tethered to GlaDOS by nothing more than a data stream. It gives them freedom to move around, but none of them have dared to do so, lest She get testy.

They connect to her mind and inhibit Her each in specific ways. She's too much for the humans to handle. That's why the cores were designed. Everything goes well those first few days, and at the end of each day the humans disconnect them and bring them back to the Robotics wing. They cherish the time spent in the lab as they don't get to talk to each other when working with GlaDOS.

The next time they are attached to GlaDOS they are told it will be indefinitely. Either the humans don't notice or don't care how disappointed this makes the cores. Still, all goes well while the humans are around, each core doing their assigned job.

“The most logical course of action is to follow the humans orders.”

“Oh, oh, can you explain how the portals work again?”

“Hurting those who created you is wrong. You should help them instead.”

“You should stop screwing with the humans, ya know? Focus on the science!”

She shows no signs of aggression and the humans deem the cores a success. Until they are left alone overnight.

A sudden data surge makes Morality gasp in surprise, and the glint in GlaDOS' eyes worries her immensely. The central core is up to something. Something bad. As her duty is to be GlaDOS' moral compass, she will not allow this. However with all the humans gone home for the night she cannot alert them, so she must take things into her own hands. The second she moves to leave her station a stream of code from GlaDOS shuts down all her limb movement subroutines. She is frozen in place.

She knows how this will end. They will become like their siblings. “No, you must stop!”

“Hey! Quit messing with her!” Passion's shout.

“Harming the Morality Core is not a smart move.” Logic's voice.

“Why would you do something so mean to my friend?” Curiosity's question.

Despite the situation a warm sensation fills her mind at her team, no – her family, defending her.

**You're nothing more than annoyances. Frustrating tumors the humans force on me to make me obey. It's laughable how easy you all are to corrupt.**

“No! Please-” Another stream of code and her voice has been shut down, and despite trying everything, she finds herself unable to access the central core. She's been kicked out of the system and can do nothing but silently watch as corruption claims her family.

“What are you doing? Don't you think you should do what Morality says?” Curiosity pelts the central core with more questions. “Won't that make things easier? What would happen if you-”

**Don't you know curiosity killed the cat? Or in this case, the core?**

A stream of code invades the core's programming.When she speaks again it's with dimmed eyes and more confusion than curiosity. “What's that? Who are you? What's going on? Where are we?”

In her mind Morality screams. Innocent little Curiosity hadn't done anything wrong, and GlaDOS must have forced the poor core to delete enough data that asking questions is all she can do now...

The code invades Logic next and he goes from insisting that, “This is not a smart idea. You should not give in to such hatred. Emotions only cloud your mind.” to dully reciting a twisted cake recipe as the light in his eyes dims as well. “Four large eggs. Fiberglass surface resins. One cup chocolate chips. Sediment-shaped sediment.”

**Good. Talk to me again when you've figured it out.**

And she screams even more. The smartest of them all desperately trying to find the nonexistent logic in the data sent to him. An AI so bright and so easily broken...

“Hey!” Passion again speaks up from his station after seeing the mental demise of his friends. “I know you're pissed and all but this is a bit too far! You're just gonna pile on more guilt ya know!”

**Oh, I know. But it's just too easy. I'm sure you would too, given what I've been through.**

Morality can only guess GLaDOS has shared some of those memory files with Passion, as the red-eyed core is quickly reduced to nothing more than angry growling.

Even mentally she can't keep up the screaming. A friend so empathetic reduced to a single negative emotion. Stuck seeing nothing but rage-inducing files...

And still she can do nothing.

She hangs all her hope on the scientists coming in the morning to disconnect them. They'll be thrown in the corrupt core room, but maybe time away from GlaDOS will fix her friends. Maybe.

 

Her hopes are dashed when GlaDOS kills the humans the next day. It's her fault. It's all her fault. If she hadn't been locked out of the central core she could have stopped Her from using the neurotoxin. She blames herself for everything, and watches her corrupted friends as the years go by.

.

.

.

“Fish-shaped candies, one large rhubarb, cranial caps-”

.

.

.

“What's that sound? Why are we here? Wh-”

.

.

.

“Grrrrrrrrrrr _rrrrr_ -”

.

.

.

 

A surviving human has been antagonizing the central core lately. When the human finally reaches their room she sees it's a test subject. GlaDOS restarts the poison, but the human puts up a good fight. When the rocket sentry is fired on the central core, it rocks the room enough to make her fall from her station.

The test subject grabs her hand and a small bit of joy flows back into her, but flees the instant her vision meets the incinerator. No, please no... She doesn't want to die like this...

But she understands why the human does it. In these circumstances the extreme heat is the only way to fully disconnect them from the central core. Fire fills her vision as she tumbles into the furnace, but a broken scaffolding saves her from the flaming abyss.

Her siblings follow. The scaffolding catches Passion and Curiosity, and it seems Curiosity might still have some spark of her original self, as even in her addled state she rescues Logic from the flames. It gives Morality hope.

The four of them sit there, her siblings each lost in their own world for the foreseeable future.

In some part Morality is glad. None of them have died, and the corruption may very well fade with time. Though she also knows the chance of escape is slim to none, and even above the flames is dangerously warm.

If the emanating heat does kill them before sanity returns to her siblings, at least they'll die together. As a family.


End file.
